TMWWBK: Operation Gravestone

I've been wanting to try out The Men Who Would Be Kings ever since I bought them. I've been a fan of all of Dan Mersey's rules, and even though I'm not a colonial gamer per se (I love VSF), I had to try them some how.

Enter last week's game and the utter failure of the Royal Society to stop the Undead horde. I don't have any Zulus, but between me and Brett, I have a lot of Zeds. Why not just use the Zulu stats?

The mission for the British was to hold the last line of defense, and protect the the road to London and the famous Graveston Wall built in 1807 to keep out the Revenant menace.
The object for the Undead was to cross the river and exit the board.

Though wave after wave threw themselves at the Redcoats, the firepower proved too much. It didn't help old Uncle Zed that the random qualities rolled up for the Officers proved a huge benefit. No laggards here!

The Cavalry, in this case unicycles because horses are too easily spooked by the zombies, proved overwhelming. They took at two groups single-handedly before being dropped to one lone peddler.
Did it work? Yes and no. Yes, it was fun. The zombies had a 2-1 advantage points-wise, but it probably should have been 4-1. As suggested by Mr Mersey, we used the recycling rules in the "Playing Mr Babbage" section. It allowed for 3 new units to enter, but that wasn't enough. Rifle fire was too much.
We kept the pinning rules. I explained it as the dead being so shot up, they needed a chance to reform and climb over their "dead" buddies. Without the pin rules, the zombies would have rolled right over the Redcoats.
This was a last minute game I threw together with more enthusiasm then sense. We're going to try a "proper" game soon with Britsh vs Pathans.

The 3rd Annual All Hallows Eve Revenant Hunt and Social

The best of London Society showed up Thursday for the Annual Hunt. The first year it was held, the participants barely survived the evening, only just destroying the Undead Spawn points before becoming overwhelmed.

The second year, the hunters coordinated their attacks and crushed the horde almost too easily.
This year, however went much differently. The Hunters split up, attempting to hit all the Spawn points at once, guns blazing. This had the effect of creating overwhelming numbers of Revenants (so much so, the host was obliged to dig out extra zombies from an old game). The Huners were swamped in waves of the Dead. Many couldn't move, and watched helplessly as first servants and then friends succumbed to infected bites and scratches.

Far too soon, it was over. A company of Her Majesty's Special Service Troopers have been dispatched to the infected area to search for survivors and deal with Undead lurking about.

The Fistful of Lead webstore is now open!

Find it here!

Viva Revolucion!

Last night was a playtest of the first scenario in my upcoming Mexican Revolution supplement for Fistful of Lead. I'm taking a different approach and following the actual timeline of the war. Each scenario is a "zoomed in" part of the battlefield.

 Early War Brits stand in for the Federales.

The first scenario covers the battle of Casas Grande. 800 Revolutionaries (Maderistas) without heavy weapons attack 500 Federales with Machine guns and artillery. I tried to keep the ratios similar.
The Rebels have to cover the dead ground quickly to void getting cut down by the MGs and shelling.
They benefitted greatly from the apparent shoddy ammo used by the Federales (Steve rolled an appalling number of 1s). But, Federal reinforcements showed up on lucky roll on turn 2.

Several Rebels made into to town and actually took out the machinegun, but they, like their historical counterparts lost.

I felt pretty good about the game. If the reinforcements had showed later, it might have been a different outcome.

Campaign for the Kingdom: The Final Battle

The War has raged for months. Years. Sometimes we forget. Nobles have risen to power, only to fall. Last night we were able to finally declare a winner at the Battle of Blood River.

Lionel, Baron of Stonekeep faced off against Duke Horace of Dunharrow with their allied nobles.
Lionel was able to get his troops across the river first and force a double team on Horace's left flank. There might have been some duplicity by Horace's right flank commander. We'll never know.

It was a clear victory for Lionel. Rarely do these rules give it up a one sided victory.
All hail King Lionel! But for how long.....?

 The game went fast enough, we were able to play a game of Flick 'Em Up!

RECRUITs: the download

It's the week after, and I'm still exhausted. Well, not so exhausted that I won't be hosting our weekly Thursday night game, but tired.
Thanks to a whole lot of prep work by the Baroness, things at the vendor booth went smoothly. Thanks to CluckAmok and Lead Addict, the games went smoothly.

All the games I ran, have mentally run together, but they all ended with last minute victories and comic timing. Judging by the laughter coming from the other tables, I think they went well too.
I have to sit down with Lead Addict and do some fine tooth combing of what's working, and what's not with Wasteland Warriors. The thing that works with FfoL is that it runs well as a convention game as well as a 1 v 1 duel. Making that work with WW is going to take some doing.
Thanks to everyone who played, bought rules, ran the games while I was taking a restroom break, or just stopped by to say "hi".

Off to RECRUITS!

See everyone there.